#tmatb ii

[keydekyie]

"Hello there, do you know the way to Widewater? Oh, don't mind my companion. He's just shy."

[definitely-not-knightress]

When I first saw that @keydekyie had physical versions their books I knew I had to get them, I’m just so happy that they finally came in today :3

[keydekyie]

eeeeee!!!!

@keydekyie I got my books!! I was wondering why they were different prices but I didn't expect the second book to be so much bigger! I'll have to write a review when I read 🤍

[theboarsbride]

Name 5 movies/book/songs/etc that inspired each of your stories!

:0

OOO!!! So sorry this took too long to get around, but thank you so, so much for sending this ask in!! 🥺💛

The Monster and the Butterfly🥀🦋

Crimson Peak - and Guillermo del Toro's whole filmography, tbh, but Crimson Peak especially. And also other ghost movies/shows, such as The Orphanage, The Others, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Mama, Paranormal Activity, The Conjuring I & II.

Panna a Netvor/Beauty and the Beast (1979), as well as Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bete.

Various dark fantasy movies and books from the 1980s/90s like The Dark Crystal, Legend, The Company of Wolves, etc. and Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber.

Shelley Duvall's Fairytale Theater "Beauty and the Beast" episode (literally why Susan Sarandon - who plays Beauty - is Sophie's fc)... and honestly, on that same note, Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy because the fucking music is so good, and Brad Dourif as Grima Wormtongue is the whole reason why the modern version of Edgar exists (and is his fc) lmao.

A Taste for Monsters by Matthew Kirby - and to add onto this, KIND OF?? Is that a lot of inspiration for TMATB came from the hate I feel towards some modern BATB retellings (i.e.- Sarah J Maas' A Court of Thorns and Roses series especially) that feature conventionally attractive 'Beasts' who are only beasts in the sense that they're awful, toxic, cruel people who, to me, don't deserve redemption or romance - or even friendship - as well as female protagonists who are just so, so unlikeable in their bitterness, idiocy, and Mary Sue-ness??? I wanted to write a romance that featured love interests that were unconventional in appearance, flawed but still likeable, and having a relationship that is healthy/consensual!

Cheating and adding a 6th one, but the works of Abigail J. Harding's Parliament of Rooks portfolio! GOTHIC BIRD MONSTER BELOVED!

Those Red Nights🌕🐺

Using Bob Odenkirk as a fc for a werewolf character - literally that's the whole reason why this story exists lmfao. So you bet I was watching the hell out of Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad for inspo (and simp material)!

Silence of the Lambs, the movie especially! But there is also Thomas Harris' Red Dragon novel (and the movie starring Ed Norton and Anthony Hopkins, and the movie Manhunter) that was a source of inspiration!

David Fincher's Se7en - I wanted to write a neo-Noir story for a hot minute, especially ones with psychological horror elements!

Nightmare by Tuesday Knight - this just helped me develop the idea of TRN being a psychological horror, and writing about the themes surrounding nightmares, the haunting effects of guilt, etc.

Werewolf movies like Bad Moon and Silver Bullet

Temperance & Mr. Wyrm 🐍⚕️- I don't talk about this WIP much but I still think about it regularly!

Wanting to do a retelling of the fairytale "The Lindworm Prince" and also wanting to explore writing a weird body horror romance!

The Shape of Water - again, del Toro out here inspiring goofy fucking monster romances!

David Cronenberg's The Fly - tragic body horror romance goodness, my beloved!

General 1980s media and pop culture - a lot of this was kind of inspired by reading My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix! It's a book set in the 80s and utilizes the 80s nostalgia, but it also doesn't shy away from how ugly the 80s were in terms of social stigmas for people who weren't straight white men. In TAMW especially what I'd be alluding to is the stigma surrounding AIDS, and other blood-borne illnesses.

And, lowkey, wanting to have Gwendoline Christie as a fc for a character?? Like, idk, with who Temperance is as a character within the novella, Christie seems to fit her super well! Also the tall gf x short bf is a ship dynamic I ADORE! (also the character of Jack, the titular 'Mr. Wyrm,' is another character where I use Brad Dourif as a fc for but shhhhh i know I'm cringe, don't remind me)

These are the main WIPs I still work on!! There is also The Faeries and the Lark but that's more on the backburner for now, but that story was inspired by wanting to do a genderbent retelling of Sleeping Beauty but has now turned into a Gothic/dark fantasy Sapphic romance that's a funky blend between Sleeping Beauty and East of the Sun, West of the Moon that's inspired by Scandinavian folklore and seeing images of women in armor lmao.

But if there are any WIPs you'd wanna learn about, give me a shout and I'm more than willing to scream about these goofy, silly little stories!!

[keydekyie]

captive moth

🎧

[keydekyie]

Bundle!

I've been working on a book I & II bundle ahead of book III's release, with maps and a calendar and nice formatting and such. It's going to be a strictly digital release for now, but hopefully it'll be a nice way for folks new to my books to catch up. If it does well or there's a lot of interest, I might do a physical copy with merch!

Here's the synopsis for the two books together:

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦

The land of Kellabor is a wild place, where snow-capped mountains and deep forests hide monstrous creatures. Medved’ Beis, the man-eating “bear demon” keepers of Kellabor’s wild laws, are said to be the most terrible of the mountain beasts. But the Kellaborn people call these mountains home, and to them, the ancient tales are no more than children’s bedtime stories.

Kaelin Belka, daughter of her village’s blacksmith, was raised on tales like these. But after her father vanishes without a trace, the stories become all too real. Years later, Kaelin will come face-to-face with myth, and as it turns out, Medved’ Beis aren’t anything like the old stories say.

Bear demons aren’t beasts, spirits, or monsters, they’re just people; as petty, emotional, vindictive, and complicated as any human.

Oh, but the man-eating? That part is very real…

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦

This bundle should be available very soon (before August 2nd), so keep an eye out!

[keydekyie]

oh he's fast!!!

[keydekyie]

Vadik Fyodorov in his book II outfits: his "distinguished Kellaborn Officer" uniform and his bushwacking getup.

[keydekyie]

the boy lacks emotional self awareness

scene from book II

[keydekyie]

tfw you upset your giant monster friend and he accidentally triggers your fight or flight response

▶───◆──◈──◇──◈──◆───◀

a portion of a scene in chapter 17 of The Crossing

[keydekyie]

On pages 338 and 339 of book II, when Kaelin removes the piece of antler from Ruyaks paw, what does the antler look like? I assume whatever the antler is from wouldn't look like an existing animal 1 for 1, since I know a lot of the species from tmatb are either modified or don't have an irl counterpart

So the piece of antler she pulls out is just a fragment. It was either already broken apart or shattered when Ruyak stepped on it.

There are a few species of Kellaborn deer, but the most common would be something similar to the irl Siberian roe deer. Imagine it with darker coloration and stripes along the shoulders and rump. So this gives you some idea of the shape of antler he stepped on:

By Andrey Giljov - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0 [source]

Ouch.

[keydekyie]

😏

Something from book II: The Crossing.

[keydekyie]

Any advice you might have for others who wanna publish but can’t seem to get their plots in order?

This turned into a lot o.o; sorry!

lol I'm not maybe the best to ask since it did take me more than 6 years to write a sequel to book I, but my advice would be to talk it through to someone else. Like verbally. Or maybe even to yourself! Explaining the plot (or something else important to the overarching story, like themes, motifs, or character arcs) can help me recognize things to work on. I talk to my partner a LOT!

Maybe the most important thing is to get things out of your head and onto paper (or a computer screen, as the case may be) so that you aren't trying to hold a lot of stuff in your brain that you don't need to be holding. Leaves room for the ideas and better organization. I'll expound on how I do that below.

I also like to zoom in and out of the story to help me keep perspective. When I feel like I need a closer emotional connection to it, I get real granular and write some dialogue, a dramatic scene or internal thoughts, or a description of some visceral physical thing, or maybe sketch some expressions or scene ideas. Might use it, might not. If I like something a lot, it may help me to know I need to move the story in that direction. When I feel too bogged down by stuff or directionless, I zoom waaaay out and write plot outlines or emotional arcs.

There are a few anchoring pieces that I build the story around. I take care not to forget them.

And of course I keep an outline of the story going, but I think it's important to keep things flexible. Why get hung up on putting things in a certain order or doing it a certain way when maybe it's better a completely different way? I've moved huge chunks of story all over the place. If it makes the story flow better or gives a scene a better emotional impact, then I do that! No rules, babey!

I think the thing that's hardest for me with this way of writing is not being able to share things as I write them, since I don't commit to anything. It makes it hard to stay motivated, because I'm not getting constant feedback and encouragement from people, but it makes the story easier to mold and form because I don't have to fit things to whatever I've already shared. If I write a big long chapter and two months later I want to completely scrap it in favor of something else, it's fine. There's no restrictions.

Oh btw my outlines are pretty loose and silly. I have a lot of stuff like this in them:

I also like to write out the various ideas I have to resolve conflicts so I can play around with them. I don't like to choose the easiest, cleanest options, I like to pick the options that balance sense with potential drama.

Example for the fight at the Motylek altar in book II chapter 9:

[MAJOR spoilers for book II below]

One other thing I found helps a lot is to have an exhaustive list of characters with their physical descriptions, ages, jobs, families, locations, basic personalities, and relevant beliefs in an easy to read format. I don't use all the characters I come up with, but it gives me things to springboard off of and helps me stay consistent. I made up and grouped dozens of Motylek villagers that I didn't end up using, but I had them ready just in case.

I've also found that drawing out the story in various visual forms helps me. For book II I drew all over a map where the characters were physically going and when.

[MAJOR spoilers for book II below]

I also like making visual aids for other aspects of the story. Below is a chart I made to figure out Ruyak and Kaelin's growing relationship in book II with its ups and downs. It roughly graphs Kaelin's confidence in Ruyak over time (it's not to scale, it's just based on significant factoring plot points)

This is just half the graph since the other half is book III stuff. You can see there are two horizontal lines I use for reference, the lower one is where Kaelin starts at the beginning of book II, the higher one is uh... something significant that happens later lol. You can see Kaelin's confidence actually started out higher before the start of book II and went down until Loske. This chart helps me keep track of where she's at while I'm writing so I can keep her behavior consistent even though I jump around a lot while I'm writing.

A thing of note: none of this stuff is set in stone when I make it! I changed things many times as I wrote, and added and removed things willy nilly.

I don't know if any of this is helpful or not! But it's what helps me, so... y'know.

[keydekyie]

I'd got a few ideas for requests, but how about on pages 227 to 230 (physical book) where Kaelin and Ruyak have their fight near the road to Loske

I've not had the easiest time focusing these days so this is taking WAY too long to draw, but while I was trying to work on it I realized how cool of a thing it was to have the book page actually open on my desk while illustrating the scene and I got all excited lmao

[keydekyie]

I just finished reading The Crossing and omg it was so good! It took me about two weeks or so to breeze through it, and I just want to say that you've done a fantastic job with the story so far. Your writing quality has improved, I enjoy the world-building, and especially the development between Ruyak and Kaelin's relationship (not to mention a certain dark truth about Ruyak's past and how Kaelin handled it all!). Your series is so interesting to read, I can't wait to read the next one.

Aaah thank you!!!

Thank you so much for your kind words, Anon. I needed them! <3

If you'd like, I'd love to hear what your favorite scenes or lines were! I'm always so curious.

[keydekyie]

Pt. 1/2 since phone is wonky:

Just finished TMATB ii after finally having time to read it through. I loved this start to Kaelin and Ruyak's journey despite it being difficult (communication, stormy weather, brief sibling drama, new acquaintances etc). Favorite part off the top of my head was Kaelin drawing in the dirt and explaining to Ruyak different insects while both are drunk. The interaction was too cute with both so comfortable with eachother in the moment. Can't wait for book iii 🙏 so I've been going back through old posts of yours for now and will continue to do so ❤

<3 <3 <3 thank youuu!!!

I'm glad you liked it! I had so much fun writing it, and I'm really excited to finish book III. The mead and spiders scene is one of my favorites too, as it's the start to the way things will be moving forward.

thanks for your kind words! :D